You’ve no doubt by now noticed that the sites got a bit of a re-design and some things got changed around last week. We wanted to highlight two changes to make sure everyone knows what changed.

The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

The Philippines once had a peaceful revolution called People Power, led by Cory Aquino. She was the wife of the late Sen. Benigno Aquino, one of our country’s heroes. After the People Power revolution, she became president and the rest was history.

I was in grade school when she was president so I have to admit that I won’t remember anything much about her term except what everyone else has told me, and what I’ve read. There were people who didn’t quite agree with how she handled the affairs of the state. But I best remember her as the woman who had this quiet strength about her, a woman who had so much faith a woman who became a mother to the nation. For those of you who want to remember her, Pinoy Fear Factor has a blog post as a tribute to her: Corazon “Cory” Aquino’s life in photos.

Now that she has passed away due to colon cancer, I hope that she is already at peace with the God she believes in. And I also hope that whatever we learned from her will live in our hearts and be reflected in our actions as Filipinos who, as her husband said, are worth dying for.

There has been a lot of clamoring for justice recently when social networks spread this article by Robin Hemley, where he posted that local customs tax importation of books, when apparently there shouldn’t be as this is a violation of the Florence Agreement the country signed. As a regular person, I didn’t actually know that books shouldn’t be taxed, growing in a country where almost everything is.

Many books of most genres are greatly affected by this. And quoting my friend Alex who summed up it well,

Administrators should let this sink in – these books are making our students read again. Deprive them of that motivation and surely, we’ll find ourselves more illiterate as a society.

For the time being, we are making a lot of noise in twitter, using the #bookblockade hash tag, and spreading the word via other means. So far, there are already a couple of officials who heard our plea. But we still need more.

PSID has always been known for its innovative, groundbreaking, pioneering, and original exhibits. This year’s graduating batch rises to the challenge with “E.A.R.T.H. Designs,” another highly anticipated show of talent and creativity – standards that make the PSID graduates a viable force in the academe and the industry, and their exhibits a must – see!

Blogs are reporting that MMA fighter Chuck Liddell will be here today, September 21, 2008 for a quick visit. According to news reports, there are no concrete details yet on what he’ll be doing in MOA but fans will surely be coming in hoards so come early and reserve your place.

Mark your calendars! From the 12th to 16th of September, 300 exhibitors from all over the Philippines and all over the world will converge at the SMX Convention Center for the 29th Manila International Book Fair (MIBF).

With the theme “Words without Borders,” the MIBF celebrates the power of literature to cross the boundaries of time, place, and culture. MIBF showcases the largest and most varied collection of literature, textbooks, educational supplements, general references, religious and inspirational titles, self-help books, management books, Filipiniana, coffee table books, popular novels, children’s books, art books, graphic novels, rare and hard-to-find titles, magazines, audio and e-books, multimedia, teaching supplies and services, publishers’ technology, and travel materials.

The 29th Manila International Book Fair is organized by Primetrade Asia, Inc. in partnership with Asian Communicators, Inc., Book Development Association of the Philippines, Philippine Booksellers Association, Inc., and Publishers Representatives Organization of the Philippines. For details, call 890-0661 or 896-0682, log on to www.manilabookfair.com, or e-mail bookfair@primetradeasia.com.

If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

NAIA 3 finally had its first departure yesterday with a Cebu Pacific flight to Caticlan. Almost 5 years has passed since construction was finished on the new terminal. Currently, only domestic flights from Cebu Pacific Air, Philippine Airlines Express and Air Philippines will be utilizing the facility. Other PAL flights will still be at Terminal 2, other international Cebu Pacific flights will still be at Terminal 1 while other domestic Cebu Pacific flights will still be at the old domestic terminal. International flights from both airline companies are expected to utilize NAIA 3 later this year.

According to a recent Business World article, Manila has the 3rd cheapest parking rates across Asia Pacific at under $4 a day (about P182). New Delhi has the cheapest at $1.87 and Jakarta goes for about $1.89 with Sydney having the most expensive rates reaching $54 a day.

Mall operators also cited that they do not earn from parking structures (yeah right) and that they charge parking so that people who don’t patronize their malls do not park at their parking structures (someone needs to go back to philo 1).

PAGASA missed its forecast of typhoon Frank which passed Metro Manila an hour ago, despite earlier predictions that it will not hit Luzon. This in turn delayed the suspension of all sea travel hence the sinking of a Sulpicio Lines ship with 700 people on board.

While we understand that this oversight was caused by the agency’s possible lack of budget to buy better machines for predicting the weather or perhaps the outdated models that they use to predict typhoon direction, we fail to comprehend why the change in direction of the typhoon, which PAGASA can monitor, did not prompt anyone from the agency to contact the coastguard and thereby alert any ships on open water?

Blame game asides, we hope that they everyone on the ship will soon be rescued.

For the rest of us in relatively dry land, classes have been suspended tomorrow for Elementary and High School all over the Metro. College students will have to wait until 11pm tonight for the announcement. Those still experience power outages may call MERALCO’s hotline at 16211. Stay safe to all.

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